Adorae’s Family Flock and Farm

notabitail · Nov 9, 2023

Adorae said:
Another set of updates. I've been sick for about 8 weeks now, and finally on the prescription drugs to get better.

I ordered a couple Coronation Sussex because I really love the color and pattern. They were started pullets and able to be outside on their own. I have them in the hospital coop now while they acclimate and get a bit bigger. The rest of the flock is on layer feed, and I think they need the extra protein from the all flock until they are a bit bigger.

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I'm getting 6-8 eggs a day so far. I'm averaging roughly 5 dozen of eggs a week. A couple of my WTB are laying green eggs. I've already spoke to Murray McMurray about it and they have given me a store credit. I might get something from them this next spring.
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Something else that is weird is that most of my pullets seem to be growing spurs. I haven't had a lot of time to really figure out what to do about them, or if I even need to do something. I haven't figured out if I need to do anything with the boys spurs right now either.

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My wonderful neighbors are moving. They are an older couple and have decided that their property is too much to deal with. They have roughly 20 chickens, a mix of cream legbar and french marans, and have moved them over onto our property. I'm not too interested in the marans because they have an issue with a lot of meat spots in their eggs, but I can make use of them. Some of them are pretty birds and I can throw them into my egg layer flock to increase my colors for my egg basket.

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I've been trying to figure out which chickens I will be buying this next year and I would like to do a few hatches as well. When I get that list solid, I will share it.

As far as the coop goes, I installed a automatic pop door and haven't done much else. Between being sick and the baby not sleeping I really don't have any capacity. I'm hoping that I'll start feeling better soon and I will need to work on winterizing the coop and getting the 2nd side prepared for next years chicks.

Don't worry about the spurs. Empress Josephine has a nice big set of them. Hens will grow them depending on their pecking order status.

Adorae · Nov 17, 2023

It's just so weird because it seems like most of them are growing spurs.

I've been dealing with a juvenile eagle that has been killing off my chickens. She's gotten 3 silkies, one of the neighbors chickens, and one of my beautiful new Coronation Sussex has disappeared. Though I haven't found a pile a feathers anywhere, there were a bunch scattered around the coop area, so I'm thinking the fox, or a far neighbor's dog, whose been known to go after chickens, and I even have a photo of him catching a local wild goose. I've put up a bunch of areas for the chickens to run and hide in to help.

I tried locking them up in the coop for a while, but they start picking on each other. They have plenty of space for each bird in the coop and multiple levels to perch on. They just hate being locked up. After the freezing is over this winter I'm going to build some nicer chicken tractors to house my more expensive birds in.

I've already placed my order for cackle for another 20 chickens for the egg flock. I'm getting some Ameraucanas since the WTB eggs were not as blue as I thought they would be. I also got Welsummers for the speckled eggs, and some leghorns for white eggs. And I also ordered a few turkey's as well. Pretty excited to see how everything works out.

I bought my incubator for this spring, and I'm hoping to order some hatching eggs for a few hatches this spring. I'm really excited to get some fluffy English type Orpingtons. I'm planning to get a few Ayam Cemani for my sister in law as well.

I have a little more cleaning up around the coop area and I will be posting more pictures then.

Adorae · Jan 8, 2024

Oh man, well past time for an update. Everything got so busy during the holidays that there wasn't much time to be posting on everything.

I have taken over the neighbors flock, a couple French Black Copper Marans and splash Marans, a couple Production Reds, and some Cream Legbar mixes. I believe they are the ones laying the olive eggs. 10 hens from the neighbors remain and 2 male guineas.

Been dealing with a hawk that has taken many of the birds. All the roosters are still around, except for the Silkies.
Only one Silkie is still around, a little black girl. I have 1 Lakenvelder hen, 1 Coronation Sussex, 1 Columbian Rock, 2 Naked Necks, 2 Dark Cornish, and 6 Whiting True Blues.

The boys are 2 Columbian Rocks, 1 Dark Cornish, 1 Egyptian Fayoumi, and 1 Whiting True Blue.

So 19 of my original 42? chicks are left. The extra roosters were processed by me, and the rest were victims of the hawk, and neighbors dogs, though I can't really prove it as of right now.

5 Roosters and 24 hens. I have 5 hatches planned for this spring, the first one I will start collecting eggs for at the beginning of Feb. It's going to be a mixed hatch to test out the 2 incubators I got. I've never hatched chicken eggs before, so I'm pretty excited.

I also have another order of chicks from Cackle hatchery to pick up on Feb 29th. A lot of Ameraucans, some white Leghorns, a few Welsummers, and some Silver Laced English Orpingtons.

I was a bit disappointed in the blue eggs from the True Blues. It's very pale, and I'm hoping the Ameraucanas will have a better looking blue. I also got the Leghorns for the white eggs and the Welsummers for their speckled eggs. I'm really interested in getting a colorful egg basket. I'm very interested in the Orpingtons and hope to get many more from specific breeders later on.

That's a pretty big update, I'll try to get some pictures loaded up. The next update will likely be when I get to set the eggs in the incubator. I've been doing a lot of playing in the chicken calculator, and I will know the breed of the mom by egg color, and I will be able to make really good guesses at the dad, based on the way the chicks look after the fuzz disappears.

Adorae · Jan 8, 2024

The pics of inside of the coop are of the chickens I got from the neighbors.

Adorae · Jan 29, 2024

I've started to collect eggs for a hatch starting on February 6th. This is really just a way for me to get some experience hatchings eggs before I try to set up deliberate groups. I'm going to be collecting eggs from the egg type hens only, since any pullets will get add to the egg laying flock, and the boys will get culled. I may keep one or 2 if they have really fun colors or patterns, but I'll let Pita and the Fayoumi rule the flock for 1 more year. Once I get a Ameraucana rooster, he can take over.

Shortly after setting up the test hatch, I'll be setting up the breeding groups. I'm going to put Pudding, the Dark Cornish over the NN and the Columbian Rock hens. Then the other group will be the Fayoumi over the patterned True Blues, the Lakenvelder, and the lone remaining Silkie.

The following hatch from there will be the Columbian Rock over the 2 DC hens and the Coronation Sussex.

I will also be getting an order of chicks from Cackle on Feb. 29th, to be raised with whatever hatches from my incubator test.

Adorae · Feb 7, 2024

Another big update even though it really hasn't been very long. I loaded up the incubator with a bunch of mixed eggs. This is to have pullets to add to my egg flock and to test my incubators.

And also I got a hold of 5 Freedom Ranger chickens from the Freedom Ranger Hatchery. This is a big score for me because someone else already did the hard work of buying a large batch of chicks, raising them, and then picking out the best Rooster, Big Red, and 4 best hens.
I understand they are hybrids, and they won't breed true, but they will add significant bulk to my Columbian Rocks. They currently have a coop to themselves separated from the rest of the chickens and I hope to do a big hatch of their eggs after this current hatch has completed. After that I will put Noodle over the Freedom Ranger hens and keep the biggest birds that free range well.

The previous owner of Big Red and the girls was unhappy with them because they old ranged around when there wasn't food in the feeder and she was wanting to implement gravity feeding and only have to refresh food and water a couple times a week.

Here's a not so great picture of them. You just don't get the size of Red from the picture. I tried to get one of my hand on him for a size comparison, but he really wasn't interested in being touched. He is a really big boy. He's as tall as the Columbian Rocks, but significantly wider. But having him pushes my meat bird timeline forward a whole year, which is really exciting.

And update on the rest of the flock. All the girls seem to be laying well, except the 2 production reds that I got from the neighbors, I think they might have aged past their laying life, even though they should only be 2-3 years.. The boys are all doing well too, everyone is mostly recovered from the frostbite they got from that horrible cold snap. Still have some black on some combs, but no one got an infection and they boys' wattles are all a bit shorter.

I have a lot of plans for how to fix that this next year so that next winter is more comfortable for everyone. I also learned that I will need to get a safe heat source out there when we get temps in the negative 30/40 range. It was just stupid.

Probably won't update again until I can get some photos of the candled eggs. Fingers crossed I don't botch it horribly!

Adorae · Feb 14, 2024

Another update, it’s been pretty busy! I weighed Red and his biggest hen, 13.5 and 10.66 respectively. The hens don’t look that big until you pick them up and they are solid! Just today I got my first 2 eggs from them. I don’t expect to get more than 2 at a time anytime soon because 2 of them are molting.

I candled the eggs in the incubator and tossed 4. One of them was never fertilized, 2 were from the old chickens I got from the neighbors and I think we’re fertilized by the guineas and the last one was a blood ring. I filled the empty spots with more silkie eggs that I collected. I’m hoping to continue my silkie project this way.

Adorae · Feb 23, 2024

The next update I do will have baby chicks in it! my eggs are going into lock down tomorrow and I will also start collecting eggs from the Freedom Rangers then too. I will have had them for exactly 3 weeks tomorrow. I'm pretty excited to see what hatches out from them as f1 crosses. Then I plan to put noodle the Columbian Rock over the FR hens next to see if I can increase their mobility while still putting on bulk and size, even if it's a little bit slower. my ideal meat bird would finish at around 12 weeks while free ranging.

I have some English Orpington eggs that are being shipped to me this weekend from an individual here on BYC. Her birds look amazing. I am planning to hatch out those eggs with the FR eggs.

I just bought another NR360 incubator because the cheap chinabator I got has killed over 1/2 of the eggs inside of it. I might stick some more random eggs in it with the rest and see if having the govee in it helps any at all. I really love the govee so far and the NR360 incubator I already have seems pretty good.

Haven't lost anymore chickens since the hawk disappeared. Though I have seen a coyote during the day near the chickens, but it took off when my husband went outside. I have the brooder space set up for when my chicks hatch. As long as we don't have any more freezes they will have loads of room to run around.

Adorae · Feb 28, 2024

So my hatch rate was pretty rough for my first time. Only 20/36 hatched. I blame mostly the cheap Chinese incubator, but I know some of it was also from lack of experience.
Of the chicks that hatched out some of them seemed to have a problem with walking on their hocks. So I dissolved a 6 vitamin in some water and added a syringe full. That seemed to help a lot and everyone appears to be happy and healthy.

I wanted to have them out into their pack and play brooders yesterday evening, but the temp dropped to 22 over night and I really didn't want to have to set up heat lamps and anything more extreme than the brooder plates for safety reasons.

5 eggs hatched this morning, so I have not gotten pictures of those chicks yet, and I have 4 eggs left in the incubator, but I didn't see any signs of life when I candled them. But we'll see what happens. I will leave them until tomorrow afternoon.

I kept notes as the chicks hatched, so I have an idea of who the moms could be, but I won't have a better idea of who the dads are until they start feathering out. There's 1 Naked Neck chick, which I was surprised to see. It hatch from what I thought was a Dark Cornish egg.

I got my Orpington hatching eggs yesterday and 3 were damaged despite how amazing the seller had them packaged. I used the broken ones as an opportunity to verify that they were fertile and they were. when I candled them I only found a few air cells. I had them resting overnight and I will try to candle again tonight to see if they have settled? None of them looks like scrambled eggs, so I am holding on to all my hope that they start developing. I will also be setting the eggs I have been collecting from the Freedom Rangers that I acquired at the beginning of February. Going to set all of those eggs on Friday.

Adorae · Mar 6, 2024

Did my first set of weekly pictures, it appears I have been so busy that I have neglected to upload the first set of pictures from the chicks I got from the hatchery. Luckily the chicks haven't really changed much.

We have 10 Silkies - TSC had buff and partridge so I got a couple more, 4 chick minimum